When James Rampley made out his will in Harford County, Maryland, in 1812, there was an apparent issue with his daughter Nancy’s husband, John Beatty. Rampley made it clear by giving real property not to Nancy, but to her two children. There was a catch. That property was only to go to Nancy’s children after her death. During her lifetime the “use and occupation” of the real property was go to to Nancy’s maintenance. Her husband was to have no “claim, right or title” to the property and Nancy’s brother was to be the trustee. The will does not indicate the issue James Rampley had with John Beatty, but likely it centered on how John would handle the sixty acres of real estate intended for the Beatty family. […]
I have two group research trips scheduled in 2020. Visit our site for more information or to save your spot! Salt Lake City’s Family History Library–May/June 2020 Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, Indiana–August 2020
Did your relative speak more than one language? Sometimes this can be difficult to determine, but 20th century census records may help with some relatives. Speaking a foreign language doesn’t mean the person was from there, but it can be a clue. Last names can suggest ethnicity or country of origin, but sometimes those clues are not necessarily as obvious as is sometimes thought. A relative with an Italian name may actually be Swiss. Genealogy Tip of the Day book is here. Learn more about it. If you’d like to get our genealogy tip daily in your email for free, add your address here.
Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. The one line from the lyrics to the television show “Cheers,” may not be entirely correct (there’s a tip about assuming and memory), but “taking a break” is sound genealogical advice. Sometimes one comes back at their problems with a new perspective and a fresh attitude. For those who just “can’t stop doing genealogy,” consider working on a family that is significantly different from your own: Your relatives urban? Try working on a rural family. Your relatives been in the United States for centuries? Try working on a family who immigrated in the late 19th or early 20 century. Your relatives Baptist? Try working on a family that was Catholic, Jewish, Quaker, etc. Your family all […]
Before you think that document says what you want it to say or before you “react” to a genealogical compilation or conclusion someone else has made: read it again And maybe read it one more time. It can be easy to jump to conclusions or assume that a record says something it does not–particularly if we’ve been searching for a fact for some time or if there are words or phrases in the document that we do not understand.
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